


In Which Rhett Never Does Get To Finish Painting That Rubik's Cube

by wneleh



Category: BFFs - Rhett & Link, Rhett & Link
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: A continuation of the Sketchtober short "BFFs."  Maybe the new Link was just trying to find the easiest stickers to peel.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).



The Procedure was explicit: for Links delivered before noon, Agent 4793 (or, as he liked to think of himself, _Rhett_ ) was to (1) explain their relationship, (2) orient the new Link to the facility (lounge to which he’d been delivered, quarters, wash room, and storage room), then (3) take the new Link to the Arby’s down the street. If the delivery happened after lunch but before 6:30 p.m., the destination changed to a stroll to TGIFridays; before breakfast (which had never actually happened), the Waffle House directly across; after dinner, the walk-up window at the Taco Bell on Russell. 

This routine was designed to give the new Link a sense of constrained freedom; it was also about naming things: car, bus, chewing gum (used), palm tree, lamppost, hippy. Each named thing helped draw forth the new Link’s latent life knowledge, hastening the commencement of their dual purposes: writing novelty songs while fixing Rubik’s Cubes.

That was what was _supposed_ to happen; but today, damn it, they’d had to switch in the new Link while Rhett had been in the middle of painting the red side of a cube, and Rhett was afraid that if he waited until after lunch to restart, the paint would be completely dry and there’d be a seam. Rhett didn’t mind things like that too, too much, but Links were particular, as was the Agency.

So Rhett settled the new Link (still in his white gown) onto their sofa, then tried to roll the semi-dried paint off his brush while he pitched ideas. “Fog as a metaphor for farts,” he suggested. 

But the new Link just stared at him, his own fingers, the cube.

“Farts as a metaphor for overindustrialization,” Rhett iterated.

The new Link just kept staring. Okay, so no song work was going to happen right away. They’d do the naming-random-Burbank-street-features first, as usual. Fine. 

Rhett reached into the cube bin and came up with an older model, one with peeling sticker edges. This type, an early generation model actually made by Ideal, was a pain in the ass, because you had to peel all the stickers off before painting (or regluing, but that had its own drawbacks); Rhett much preferred the newer knockoff type he was currently fixing, which had the color cooked into the plastic. 

“See if you can get the stickers all the way off before we head to lunch,” he commanded, handing over the cube.

Instead of doing as he’d been asked, though, the new Link started fiddling. This was against the Procedure, but as the new Link wasn’t yet fully oriented, Rhett didn’t think correcting him was going to do much good. And maybe the new Link was just trying to find the easiest stickers to peel.

But now the new Link was turning the rows and columns and whatever-you-called-the-third-dimension-of-an-N-dimensional-array with more intent, like maybe he had done it before, like he was looking for something. And after about a minute, he found it. “Ah-hah!” he said, and Rhett realized that each face of the cube now sported a same-color X – yes, all the corners now matched the center of their face.

More twisting, and now there was a belt around the cube, such that each vertical face, as the new Link was holding it, bore an H.

Not twenty seconds later, he was done: the new Link had fixed the cube without painting it.

Thus rendered Rhett’s life’s work meaningless.

“How did you know how to do that?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

“I don’t know,” said the new Link; the first words he’d strung together since delivery. “My fingers just sort of knew what to do, then I saw a pattern and my eyes took over, then my fingers again at the end.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” said Rhett, knowing it was a useless request; wondering if he should call for an extraction immediately.

“Why can’t you be happy for me?” asked the new Link. “This could be my thing…”

Those were the words. Rhett – no, damn it, he was Agent 4793 - got up and didn’t bother excusing himself.

\- - - - -

The Agency hung up on him.

A new Link isn’t ready yet, they said. Won’t be for a few weeks, they said. Buck up and deal, they said. Maybe work on getting a song done that afternoon? Maybe not about farts?

The new Link had fixed another cube in the time Rhett had been gone, and was starting on a third. “This one doesn’t turn very well,” he commented. "Where's the WD-40?"

“I can paint it!”

“No, find something else to do with your fingers,” said the new Link. “Where’s your guitar?”

“I don’t have a guitar!” Though his own fingers seemed to want to move… No! This wasn’t what they did!

“Of course you have a guitar,” said the new Link. “You always have a guitar.”

The Agency was just going to have to take this Link away. Now. Rhett wouldn’t have trouble amusing himself until a new one was ready. Yes, he’d just stay busy painting cubes, and when the next Link was ready he’d follow Procedure and they’d write songs and fix cubes together as usual.

Rhett reached into the cube bin and pulled out a 4x4x4, then tossed it to the new Link, who squinted and frowned, then started tentatively fiddling. Once the new Link seemed completely absorbed, Rhett slipped outside and again dialed the Agency.

Eight rings… nine… ten…. 

They weren’t going to answer.

Well, okay then, he’d go talk to them in person. How far away could they be? He’d long since surmised that the Agency was located not more than a couple hundred yards away, perhaps even in one of the low buildings that ringed the rear blacktop. The silver silo by the dumpsters near the single driveway looked particularly out-of-place, and Rhett had always kind of suspected that it was owned by the Agency. 

As he stepped off the concrete pad their building sat upon, an alarm sounded – not loudly, but definitely from both behind him and from the building nearest the silo. Huh. He stepped back up and it stopped.

Odd that he’d never really explored back here before – had he? No. 

“What are you doing?” 

The new Link had followed him out. “I don’t know why you’re being so weird,” said the new Link. “You’ve never been like this before.”

Why hadn’t he just had them do the walk to Arby’s?? The naming, followed by the roast beef sandwiches, gave them a common history, helped them get into sync, and the Agency wanted them in sync. Instead of this – remembering a life that hadn’t been? Couldn’t have been?

The new Link stepped off the concrete and the alarm resumed. Back up, and it stopped. “I don’t like this,” the new Link said, stepping off again. 

“What’s not to….” Rhett began, but Link had taken off, jogging toward the opening near the silo…

“Hey, wait, no…”

The new Link made it to the driveway before Rhett caught up to him, and they rounded the corner together; the Agency van was parked against a prefab about twenty feet up, near the turn from what seemed to be a busy street. Barely out of sight from their own building’s rear door; kind of insulting, really.

Another, louder alarm was sounding now, and there were shouts from where they’d come from. The new Link jogged toward the van and Rhett thought he was making a run for the street, but instead he opened a door in the prefab and slipped inside.

Rhett knew he should give a shout before following the new Link… he knew he should… but what if the new Link got further away in the meantime? No, Rhett would keep up with him, capture and hold him and then call the Agency…

The new Link was right inside, and pulled the door shut as soon as Rhett was in. “Found it, first try,” said the new Link, making no sense whatsoever.

The interior of the prefab was dark, illuminated primarily by knee-height blue lights, and as Rhett’s eyes adjusted he realized it was larger than he’d expected. The main contents seemed to be large cases – human-sized cases, opaque but with clear covers.

It didn’t take a monumental feat of reasoning for a kid of the 90s to realize he was looking at stasis pods.

He did NOT want to look inside them… he would just leave, call the Agency…

“Hey, look, here’s you! Man, you look terrible! And a baby me!”

Rhett lurched forward to the first pod the new Link had examined. Yes, that was him… old, shrunken, beard extending across the blanket that draped his torso.

Eyes, thankfully, closed. But alive. This him was alive…

The new Link was looking into other cases, almost gleefully. “They’re moslty mes! Oh, but here’s a baby-faced Rhett, ready for prom…” 

Rhett turned and peered into the pod closest to the older him, and looked directly into the face of an equally-shriveled Charles Lincoln Neal-the-third…

If this was where they started, where did they end? Was the Link who’d been extracted not an hour ealier still…

“Do you have a knife?” the new Link called from a doorway. “I found a full clone of myself and I need to kill him.”

\- - - - -

This room could have been in any low-budget clinic anywhere, except the patient – the old Link, still in what he’d been wearing when they’d taken him – was strapped to the table. The restraints seemed like overkill, as he was either asleep or dead.

But would they be giving fluids to a dead guy?

No, they weren’t all giving him fluids, the line at the base of his skull was taking something out of him…

“Why do you want to kill him?” Rhett asked. 

“He’s my clone, he could frame me for murder or something…”

That made a disturbing amount of sense. But, still... “Try not to think of him as a clone. Pretend he's... your twin brother! Or identical cousin! We can call him Charlie!"

“Oh, that might work,” said the new Link. "You better pull the tubes, if I see blood I'll faint."

It took a minute of consideration, but Rhett had been observant enough through life ( _had he???_ ) that he had some notion of how to remove a line; and, anyway, it worked. Moving around behind him, the new Link announced that he'd locked the door to the room with the stasis chambers, and that the room's other door led directly outside.

Rhett was not at all sure that, even sharing the load, they'd be able to move very fast carrying the old Link, but as the last line slid out the old Link opened his eyes.

"You came..." he mouthed, and Rhett swallowed hard.

"Of course I did," he said, wanting to weep. "You're my best friend."

Someone was now trying to open the door from inside the stasis chamber room. "Let's move!" said the new Link.

\- - - - -

They weren't in great shape, any of them, and they weren't going very fast, but there didn't seem to be any pursuit, and after crossing the boulevard and heading down another alley they found themselves in a city park. As one, they sank to the ground under an optimistic tree; they were still sitting there when the ground started to shake and a rumble filled the world. Earthquake?

No…

It seemed that silo – wasn’t.

Trailing fire and white smoke, it rose and rose. Rhett forced his attention lower, toward its origin - had everything close been obliterated - the stasis pods, their home?

"I wonder if they got what they came for?" asked the new Link - now _just_ Link.

The old Link rubbed the back of his neck, where that third tube OUT had been, and Rhett had to ask, "Do you still know what I'm going to say while i'm saying it?"

"No," said old-Link-now-Charlie.

"I think... they harvested that from you," said Rhett. The world was - really just too much right now, and he lay back. "I think I'm going to take a little nap."

"Maybe not the best idea," said Link and Charlie together; then, again in unison, "This could be awkward. Are we READING EACH OTHERS MINDS? No, I think we're just reacting to similar stimuli in similar ways. Annoying."

They stopped, then Charlie asked, "Does this mean one of us has to die?"

“No… I think it’s going to take both of us to deprogram the big guy,” said Link.

"Maybe I'll carry the knives?" Rhett offered, sitting back up.

“Okay, works for me,” said Charlie. Then, “You guys hungry?”

“Arby’s?” Link suggested.

In the distance, there were sirens. A lot of sirens.

“Yeah, I could handle Arby’s,” said Charlie. “Anyone have any cash?”

**Author's Note:**

> The short film [BFFs](https://youtu.be/8Th9F9xUn5Y) is a creation of comedians Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal (actually, Charles Lincoln Neal III), known professionally as Rhett&Link. It's only four minutes long, so instead of me describing it, how about you just go watch it. I'll wait. Try not to get pulled into the world of Mythical Entertainment, else you'll never make it back here.
> 
> Okay, back?
> 
> Amusing enough, right? 
> 
> But - what the heck actually HAPPENED?? What's the larger story here? 
> 
> That's what lionessvalenti wanted to know; I'd been wondering as well. Here's my best shot at an explanation.


End file.
